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Psychiatry, mental illness and culture
Müller, Matyáš ; Komárek, Stanislav (advisor) ; Fulka, Josef (referee)
The aim of the dissertation is to treat psychiatry and mental illness from the anthropological point of view. The topic is treated at three levels. First, I describe psychiatry as a specific culture's product, and I explore how it constitutes itself as an unbiased science. I conclude that in spite of developing its scientific aspect, its human-science aspect is neglected, stuck in the 19th century's paradigm of evolutionism. Although there is a number of sources of a new less scientistic and ethnocentric and more reflexive paradigm nowadays, it still seems to be more a vision than reality due to the institutional toughness of the present paradigm. Second, I study "mental illness" as an abstract concept. I ask if the Western psychiatry's classification is universal and I explore various culturally specific forms of mental illness and its conceptualizations. Third, partially grounded in my fieldwork, I ask how abstract psychiatric terminology is embodied in a concrete human being and how the sufferer's point of view differs from the one of the professional in the mental health care. The dissertation intends to show that despite all the three levels being interlocked, their unity is not self-evident but is always constructed and contested.
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Peacekeeping forces as an instrument of enforcement of influence abroad: South Ossetia case
Müller, Matyáš ; Šír, Jan (advisor) ; Pondělíček, Jiří (referee)
The bachellor thesis deals with Russian use of the Joint Control Commission in South Ossetia by which they aim to preserve its influence in Georgia, that is being one of the post-soviet republics. The first part of the thesis is focusing on the historical context of this event, which includes the decription of the origin of the Joint Control Commission as well as what responsibilities and jurisdictions had an impact on the participating states of the commission. The second part of the thesis is presented as a case study of the RussoGeorgian war in 2008, where are shown specific examples of the Russian use of its peacekeeping forces, which were depoloyed to maintain the influence abroad. The thesis concludes by providing an outline that answers whether Russia managed maintain or even boost its power in Georgia by using the peacekeeping units.
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Peacekeeping forces as an instrument of enforcement of influence abroad: South Ossetia case
Müller, Matyáš ; Šír, Jan (advisor) ; Pondělíček, Jiří (referee)
The bachellor thesis deals with Russian use of the Joint Control Commission in South Ossetia by which they aim to preserve its influence in Georgia, that is being one of the post-soviet republics. The first part of the thesis is focusing on the historical context of this event, which includes the decription of the origin of the Joint Control Commission as well as what responsibilities and jurisdictions had an impact on the participating states of the commission. The second part of the thesis is presented as a case study of the RussoGeorgian war in 2008, where are shown specific examples of the Russian use of its peacekeeping forces, which were depoloyed to maintain the influence abroad. The thesis concludes by providing an outline that answers whether Russia managed maintain or even boost its power in Georgia by using the peacekeeping units.
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Metaphors of Madness: Silenced Myth-Makers and Disordered Brains.
Müller, Matyáš ; Komárek, Stanislav (advisor) ; Horáček, Ivan (referee) ; Fulka, Josef (referee)
The work has basically three aims: 1st to map the wide range of various approaches in the current debate about madness, 2nd to formulate a specific theory of madness, 3rd to identify general philosophical problems the topic brings about, (a 4th aim is also outlined: to understand the presented theory in terms of therapeutic potential). The central thesis of this work is that insanity is an inherently ambiguous and elusive phenomenon and that trying to understand it we are using various metaphors borrowed from other areas, and consequently forget their metaphorical nature. The work is generally motivated by an effort to reconcile conflicting approaches, to understand them as complementary. It also wants to avoid creating an all-embracing synthesis on the one hand, and purely relativistic and pragmatic viewpoint on the other hand. The first part identifies four levels on which particular approaches understand madness as a problem: the level of the individual, the level of the collective, the transpersonal level and the existential level. At the end of the part, I discuss the possibilities and risks of creating a theoretical framework that would enable to understand various contradictory approaches on a common basis. In the second part, I develop my own analysis of madness. It is based on a...
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Psychiatry, mental illness and culture
Müller, Matyáš ; Komárek, Stanislav (advisor) ; Fulka, Josef (referee)
The aim of the dissertation is to treat psychiatry and mental illness from the anthropological point of view. The topic is treated at three levels. First, I describe psychiatry as a specific culture's product, and I explore how it constitutes itself as an unbiased science. I conclude that in spite of developing its scientific aspect, its human-science aspect is neglected, stuck in the 19th century's paradigm of evolutionism. Although there is a number of sources of a new less scientistic and ethnocentric and more reflexive paradigm nowadays, it still seems to be more a vision than reality due to the institutional toughness of the present paradigm. Second, I study "mental illness" as an abstract concept. I ask if the Western psychiatry's classification is universal and I explore various culturally specific forms of mental illness and its conceptualizations. Third, partially grounded in my fieldwork, I ask how abstract psychiatric terminology is embodied in a concrete human being and how the sufferer's point of view differs from the one of the professional in the mental health care. The dissertation intends to show that despite all the three levels being interlocked, their unity is not self-evident but is always constructed and contested.
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